Goin' Mainstream
By tad
So did Fleetwood Mac -- try "Murrow's Rolling Over in His Grave," or much of TUSK. & have U heard Queen's "The Prophet's Song," or Blondie's "Angels on the Balcony" or "Victor"? I'll pick this up again later, but most "mainstream" acts ...http://tadsbackupplan.blogspot.com/2...ainstream.html

Bottom Feeders: The Rock End of the '80s, Part 32 | Popdose
By Dave Steed
This is one of those tracks that I would never have attributed to Christine McVie because it just doesn't sound anything like what I was used to hearing from her either solo or with Fleetwood Mac. Although Lindsey Buckingham and Mick ...http://popdose.com/bottom-feeders-th...e-80s-part-32/

The Sing-Off: Recap For December 15, 2010
By amellis@comcast.net (Sammi-T)
Nicole requests Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. Now, I love Fleetwood Mac, in fact they are part of the reason that if I have a daughter one day her name will be Rhiannon. Hence, it is hard for me to judge anybody else singing their songs. ...http://www.tvgrapevine.com/index.php...cember-15-2010

YouTube - Stevie Nicks is the most badass bitch ever!
"This is a ****ing ROCK STAR! If you don't like it, there are plenty of pantiless wannabes waiting for﻿ you to buy their prefab, soulless CDs! ROCK ON, ...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG1AfqjiDaM

YouTube - Stevie Nicks is the most badass bitch ever!
"This is a ****ing ROCK STAR! If you don't like it, there are plenty of pantiless wannabes waiting for﻿ you to buy their prefab, soulless CDs! ROCK ON, ...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG1AfqjiDaM

Not trying 2 blow my own horn here (no more than usual), but according 2 Blogger's statistics, readership is apparently WAY up 4 the Holiday Season here at the Back-Up Plan -- about double the usual amount.
Ghod Knows why -- mayB people R looking 4 strange music&book gift ideas 4 Xmas? I'm not doing NEthing diffrent, & in fact have lately bn a little more difficult & self-involved than usual.
Nevertheless, visitors have included folks from a Fleetwood Mac fan site called "The Ledge" (www.ledge.fleetwoodmac.net/), which picked-up on my recent mention of that band occasionally performing some rather "strange" stuff. I hope those folks realize that I meant strange in a GOOD way -- that The Mac's periodic strangeness is 1 of the many things that I thot made them so great. I've bn considering doing a write-up citing specific Xamples of their stranger work -- TUSK would B merely Xhibit A -- but I assume NE real music fan is already pretty familiar with their best stuff. The Mac has bn doing great, unusual, brilliant, unique, off-the-wall stuff since as far back as "Oh Well" & "The Green Manalishi."
NEway, that write-up -- along w/ a long list of Great Strange Music By Famous People -- will likely B coming along soon ... unless I already posted it at some point in the past. I'll havta check. I hate getting old....

Too many people underestimate the totality of Christine McVie’s role in the dynasty that is Fleetwood Mac. While many of her songs are FM [and F.M.] classics, the importance of her contributions as an over-all factor is sometimes lost on the hordes of Stevie Nicks fanatics (of which I am one): in the classic Mac lineup, she was the middle ground – tying together the wispy, fairy god mother mysticism (and at times, flakiness) of Nicks and the avant-gardism of Lindsay Buckingham. Hers were the straight-Pop gems – predominantly love songs, nothing more, nothing less…sung in her honey-dipped husky contralto – one of Rock ‘N Roll’s absolute sexiest voices.

In her 40+ decade career, McVie recorded only three solo albums, and only one while still technically in Fleetwood Mac (1970s CHRISTINE PERFECT, 1984s CHRISTINE McVIE, and 2004s IN THE MEANTIME).

While McVie never toured as a solo act, she has performed dates to promote her solo work. In this series of clips, McVie was promoting her (at that point) upcoming 1984 self-titled album. The lovely pop-infused record was released in January of 1984 and was a modest success. The album spawned two Top 40 Billboard Hot 100 hits (the #10 “Got A Hold On Me” and the #30 “Love Will Show Us How” which was released with a terrific video) and the LP peaked at #24 on Billboards Top 200. This concert was recorded on December 16 1983 at the Country Club in LA. Assisted by guitarist Todd Sharp, (future FM guitarist) Billy Burnett, bassist George Hawkins and drummer Steve Ferrone (all musicians who also played on her album) – along with special guest Mick Fleetwood – she performs a lively set of new songs and a few FM classics.

Look Back: Hit-Making Lineup Of Fleetwood Mac Formed 36 Years Ago
12/31/2010
(RTTNews) - The most famous lineup of the band Fleetwood Mac was formed on December 31, 1974, when Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were asked to join the group.

Band co-founder Mick Fleetwood had been impressed by a little-heard offering from the duo, "Buckingham Nicks," and had asked Buckingham to join Fleetwood Mac. The guitarist said he would only consider the offer if Nicks, his girlfriend and partner, was asked to join as well.

There was some worry about how Christine McVie, a keyboardist and vocalist for the band and the wife of co-founder John McVie, would feel about another woman in the group. But the merger was decided at a New Year's Eve party, where the future band mates got to know each other.

The new lineup would put out a self-titled effort in 1975. The LP, the tenth released by Fleetwood Mac, which had been putting out albums since 1968, would feature six songs credited to either Buckingham or Nicks, including the hit "Rhiannon." The band would go on to put out "Rumours" in 1977, one of the biggest albums of the 1970s. It would feature hits like "Don't Stop," "Go Your Own Way" and "Gold Dust Woman." http://www.rttnews.com/Content/Enter...d=1516915&SM=1

I've spent a fair amount of time this year rubbishing Christine McVie for what I perceive as a certain bloodlessness in her music.
Much of her oeuvre seems the same to me -- a long string of mid-tempo love/relationship songs, not too soft but certainly not too loud.
I said at one point that no one had ever written more love songs but invested them with less actual passion than Christine McVie.
(Passion. No ordinary word, that.)

I've also been somewhat cynical about Lindsey Buckingham's reputation as a pop genius, which I think is almost undone as much by "Tusk" as it is bolstered by "Rumours."
Recording vocal tracks on your hands and knees in the bathroom, or hiring the USC marching band to record a rhythm track at Dodger Stadium, doesn't make you a Brian Wilson-style savant.
It might just mean that you're doing too much cocaine.

There is, however, one song on which the two of them bring out the absolute best in each other -- a pop song with a perfect arrangement and a simmering, complex romantic soul.
And it's been in the back of my head, here and there, ever since it went Top Five in the late summer of 1982.

"Hold Me" is a McVie co-write with outside songwriter Robbie Patton.
Not being deep into Mac lore, I don't know who first suggested making it a duet between Lindsey and Christine, rather than having Christine sing it alone.

Whoever it was deserves their weight in fine, uncut Turkish hashish.
Their voices mirror each other marvelously in the verses, and build gorgeous clouds of harmony on the chorus.

I love the frustrated growl that leads into the line, "I'm just around the corner if you got a minute to spare."
And then the next line, they come back with a quieter, subtly gentler phrasing that suggests higher hopes:
"I'll be waiting for ya, if you ever want to be there."
They may be pissed off, but when the other one gets their act together, all will be forgiven.
After all, "you and me got plenty of time."

(While we're breaking down the lyrics, I also love the imagery of "slip your hand inside of my glove," which I interpret as a metaphor meaning "give of yourself unguardedly, even though I might not do the same."
And because they're both singing the line, it's like they're both being just a little bit duplicitous to each other.
Which is delicious.)

Ironically, I think Buckingham and C. McVie may have been one of the only Fleetwood Mac romantic pairings that didn't happen ... and yet, they work so marvelously as cat-and-mouse lovers on record.
Once again, though, I'm not up on my Mac lore, so maybe they did hook up some sun-kissed California day in 1979 and just never bothered to tell me about it.

The instrumental arrangement is just about perfect, too. Just to cite a few of the highlights:
* The rhythm section keeps it simple as usual; it sounds like Mick Fleetwood is just using his snare and kick-drum 95 percent of the time.
* Dig the chiming 12-string acoustic guitar that pops up in the first chorus; shows up again partway through Buckingham's guitar solo; and helps carry the quiet interlude immediately after.
* Love those flurries of -- what are they, 64th-notes? -- Buckingham fires off right before the fade. A little instrumental flash is permissible in the service of perfect pop.

Stevie Nicks, as best I can tell, is completely left out of the equation, unless she's adding her voice to the "Hold me"'s.
Sorry, Stevie; the others get along pretty nicely without you on this one.

This song was kept from Number One in the States by "Eye of the Tiger" and "Abracadabra," a pair of songs that, in my humble estimation, are not equipped to carry its jock.
Somehow it didn't chart at all in the UK, which I am powerless to explain.

Fewer than 25 hours left in this year, and here I am, listening again and again to the cool vocal interplay, the simple pulse, and Buckingham putting on a clinic on how to deploy guitars on a catchy pop single.

The Magnificent 7 are set to ride again as Centrestage presents a brand new take on their immensely popular hit tribute to 7 of the greatest bands of all time.

The best in music and comedy will combine with Gino Fabbri playing a series of hilarious linking characters in between proceedings, some new musicians in the lineup, some different song selections and a few different bands in the mix too.

With Wayne Kallis in the musical directors chair, this new rocking jamboree promises as much fun and excitement as the original smash hit production, which was seen by over 100 000 people!

Roxette, Fleetwood Mac and Smokie are the new-comers to the esteemed lineup, joining The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Abba and Queen to complete the 7 band lineup.

The Centrestage All-Star Band re-invents itself 7 times over the course of the evening to present an authentic, high-energy, harmony filled interpretation of each of the individual performance styles of the bands, complete with changing costumes and audio-visual backdrops for each segment.

The exact sounds and arrangements of the original songs will recreate the experience as if you were to see these sixties, seventies and eighties bands live on stage today.

Throw the hilarious comedy of Gino Fabbri into the mix and you have a winning recipe for a show which just cannot be missed – Fabbri will play an alien space anthropologist and body snatcher from the future, who takes over the bodies of a variety of victims to try to understand how this pivotal music of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, affected the development of our culture.

New songs in the show which join the old favourites include The Beatles’s I Saw Her Standing There, I Want to Hold Your Hand and Twist and Shout, Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way, Second Hand News, Don’t Stop and Tusk, Abba’s Ring Ring, Waterloo and Gimme Gimme, Queen’s Under Pressure, Roxette’s The Look, How Do You Do and Dressed for Success, Smokie’s Oh Carol, You Think You Know How to Love Me, Alice, Needles and Pins and Stumbling in.

Donna Africa and Eloise Potgieter are the fronting females and backing vocalists for the show, Pieter Kruger is on bass, Alan Kozak on lead guitar, Russel Snead on drums, with Khanya Matomela on keyboards. Neil Thompson also plays various instruments in the show.

So if 7 is your lucky number, then whatever you do – be there to see the 7 wonders of the musical world with a celebration which is without question The Best of the Best, by the best!

This power-packed, rocking festive season production is the hottest ticket in town and an evening of belly-laughs and supreme musicianship awaits!
Tickets are available at Computicket for R95-R119 and show starts at 20h00

When Deepest Darkest took the stage at Jonah's CD release party, I knew it was going to be good. Nate Purscelley is known among friends to write songs that are fun to play and fun to sing along to. And sure enough, they delivered.

"We've got one more song for you," Nate said, looking around the audience and summoning a couple of friends to come up and play with them. Jaycob Van Auken got up there and picked up an acoustic guitar, counted off. The opening riff of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" floated through the crowd, to hoots and hollers.

The double-edged sword of the cover song is that if it's a good song, everyone knows it and loves it, and it can generate amazing energy in a crowd; but if you choose to play it traditionally and don't hit it note for note, everyone knows and is left feeling a little bit let down. Deepest Darkest nailed that song. Nailed it. Right down to the four-part harmony and Matthew Lenhart's cry: "Runnin' in the shadows!"

Young Prince (Beau Young) is a DC artist who attends college in NC. After the release of “Prep Matters” his first major mixtape on datpiff, Young Prince has earned slots at shows with Wale, Chiddy Bang, Jackie Chain, and has a few more lined up with other artist, such as Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller and many more. His laid back tone over diverse beats is reflective of the prep lifestyle he embraces. Check out his track “Little Lies” produced by Yala off the mixtape Prep Matters. Young Prince is currently working on his next tape “W.A.R”, which is set to drop in early January of 2011. Follow @youngprincedmv on twitter

Pittsburg rapper The Jacka has a new album on the way next year called Murder Weapon. Today, he released the first track from the forthcoming project, simply called "Untitled." But there's a (marketing) catch: He wants fans to name the song.

Thematically, "Untitled" abides by a fair amount of already-established hip-hop concepts; mainly, striving to get rich and better oneself while avoiding the pitfalls of illegal activities. And the decision to sample the most recognizable part of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" is highly questionable. Luckily for us, The Jacka is a talented enough emcee that he can somehow salvage what should otherwise be a musical trainwreck.

If you'd like to name this piece of work, you can send The Jacka a reply on Twitter, and he'll announce the winner on Saturday.

[via Thizzler]
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There is no better way of finishing off an old decade than with a fresh promise for the future and that is exactly what Fiona and Eddie Doublet did on New Year's Eve.

The couple were married at home in Invercargill with family, friends and a large motorcycle to cap it off. Mr Doublet said they had scheduled the wedding to coincide with a visit by Fiona's brother and sister-in-law, who were visiting from Argentina.

It was also his brother's 50th birthday on Friday, so there were many reasons to celebrate.

The couple have been together for three years and were engaged just over a year ago when he popped the question at a Fleetwood Mac concert in New Plymouth.

The concert was a surprise trip organised by Fiona and it seemed like a good time to make it official.

"It was a surprise trip for me and I didn't realise I was going to ask her to marry me. Halfway through the show, I thought `why not'," Mr Doublet said.

They have known each other for several years because both are motorcycle enthusiasts and have been on many of the same rallies around the area.

They met when Mr Doublet came to his future wife's rescue when a dare she had agreed to backfired and she was locked out of her hotel. The details of that story could not be revealed.